


starve me if you have a heart

by JamieBenn



Series: Revisiting 2012 [1]
Category: Music RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: COVID-19, Gen, Isolation, Songwriter Harry Styles, Songwriting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:22:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23575342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamieBenn/pseuds/JamieBenn
Summary: It started with a high note, right up in that register that Harry knew would impress but wouldn’t stretch his voice too much into it’s limits.
Series: Revisiting 2012 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1697023
Kudos: 2





	starve me if you have a heart

He was having a much needed break whilst in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic response. The music that was surrounding him all the time had just… stopped. Now, he could wake up late in the morning and it wouldn’t matter. There were no rehearsals to get to, there were no studio recording sessions to attend. He could simply run about his house acting like a silly chicken, and there would be no one there to stop him. Hell, last week, he had binged three whole seasons of The Walking Dead and no one had been there to tell him that it was a horrible show to binge. But this morning was different. He woke up with a melody running through his mind, and knew that he needed to write it down, record it, whatever, before it escaped and he could never remember it again.

It started with a high note, right up in that register that Harry knew would impress but wouldn’t stretch his voice too much into it’s limits. The kind of note that would get a standing ovation back in the X Factor days, but that wouldn’t let them win the show. He imagined it with a solid drum beat in the background, bass drum echoing among a room of only tears. The lyrics hit him with a solid thump – if he was in a cartoon, a giant lightbulb would have appeared just above his head, glowing so bright the viewer wouldn’t be able to look at the screen.

Harry wrote hastily on his pale yellow scrap paper, the structure of the song beginning to take place.

_Don’t want to miss everywhere that I’ve been,  
If I miss you then I won’t have anything._

Oh he knew that people were saying that isolation was almost a dream come true – that when isolated, you should be able to do all of the things that you had been wanting to do for all the years that had past. That if you were not working, you would now have some time to jot down your creative influence, to sketch that piece of artwork or to write the stories you’ve dreamt of. Harry hadn’t thought that this would be like this for him. He thought that isolation would mean he would lack motivation. He would like ambition, ideation, and places to get ideas. After all, if you weren’t wandering different cities each day, singing to a different crowd of people and looking out different windows at different landscapes, how could you write songs about people from all walks of life?

Then again, imagination is beautiful. His pen hit the paper again, cheap blue ink flowing between the spaces on the paper.

_  
I will coat myself in silver and blow sawdust off of the bench,  
‘cause if I do not have comfort how will I reach for you again_

He had heard of artists essentially locking themselves in a room to write an entire album before – he knew that it was a thing that people did, but when writing a song about the isolation itself, he guess that it just seemed a little different.

_Close the doors behind you,  
We will hold ourselves together_

A piano riff echoed in the back of his mind, with a supporting bass line. A little jazzy, he guessed. He wondered if he could get someone to record a saxophone solo for him, maybe he could squeeze it into the song. Maybe just somewhere on the next album.

_Three whole days I’ve waited already,  
I feel like I’m too silenced  
Your arms are far but wide and warm,  
to hold me a little steady_

His stock of pasta was getting very low. He knew he was getting lazy. He would boil up some pasta every couple of days, and would eat it for each and every meal until he needed to make some more. Those jars of sauce worked well, and he knew that it was bad that he was a wealthy man and yet he ate more pasta than probably anyone else on the planet. It wasn’t even good pasta, either. The most he would have spent on a packet at a time was two quid. Because he was _not_ going to splurge on one of those gourmet brands.

_Fill myself up with your love  
I do not need to eat  
starve me if you have a heart  
even if echoing in place of a beat_

Was he writing something depressing? A sad piece of isolation drama? Maybe he was just… hungry… bored… sad…

Maybe he just wanted to write something that sounded suave, and yet like he had been doing something. Maybe he just couldn’t write a good song to save his life. But it didn’t matter, because it was something to pass the time between pasta and Walking Dead episodes.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in the One Direction fandom in a long time! However, this is the first part of my 'Revisiting 2012' series, in which I revisit fandoms that I have written fanfiction for since my first foray into Quotev/Quizzaz One Direction fanfiction in 2012. If you have any prompts for any of the fandoms that I have ever written, feel free to comment on a story, or send me a message or ask on Tumblr @ ralsfanfiction. Also, feel free to send me feedback and ideas!


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